Bears vs Babies is a card game about constructing creatures from connected body parts and using them against accumulating Baby Armies. Each monster has a strength value and belongs to the land, sea, or sky category. Bear Heads count as all three types and therefore enter every battle. The game includes 107 cards, a playmat, instructions, and a reference sheet. There is no continuing plot, campaign, or character progression.

Assembling a Monster Army

Each participant begins with one Bear Head and four additional cards. The remaining deck is divided into three Draw Piles, while the playmat provides separate spaces for land, sea, and sky Babies. A monster must begin with a Head Card, after which compatible torsos, limbs, weapons, and other parts may be attached by matching their stitched edges. Players can construct several monsters simultaneously, and creatures of the same type combine their strength during battle.

Three Choices on Every Turn

A player may take actions, provoke a Baby Army, or recover one card from the discard pile. Drawing and playing each count as one action. Two-player games provide four actions per turn, three-player games provide three, and larger groups receive two. Any Baby Card drawn is immediately placed face down in its matching army and still consumes an action. Choosing to provoke or dumpster dive replaces all regular actions for that turn.

The central gameplay decisions include:

• Draw a card from any remaining Draw Pile.
• Play a Head Card to begin another monster.
• Attach compatible body parts to increase strength.
• Use special cards to modify creatures or disrupt opponents.
• Recover one selected card through Dumpster Dive.
• Provoke the land, sea, or sky Baby Army.
• Save cards in hand without a maximum limit.

Battles Remove Every Participating Monster

Bears vs Babies does not contain numbered levels or unlockable stages. Progress comes from building armies and collecting defeated Baby Cards as points. When an army is provoked, its cards are revealed and their values are added together. Every player’s monsters of the corresponding type must fight. The strongest individual Monster Army that equals or exceeds the Babies’ strength wins and collects the entire stack. If no army is strong enough, the Babies are discarded without awarding points.